Again, he says, 'He that has not mastery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger of never being good for anything. This temper, therefore, so contrary to unguided Nature, is to be got betimes; and this habit, as the true foundation of future ability and happiness, is to be wrought into the mind, as early as may be, even from the first dawnings of any knowledge or apprehension in children, and so to be confirmed in them, by all the care and ways imaginable, by those who have the oversight of their education.' Here the philosopher seems to ground all virtue on Reason. Less intellectual people might be inclined to seek the ground of most virtue in the affections.

The practice of self-denial,' says Locke, 'is to be got and improved by custom-made easy and familiar by an early practice. The practice should be begun from their very cradles. Whenever the children craved what was not fit for them to have, they should not be permitted it because they were little and desired it. Nay, whatever they were importunate for, they should be sure, for that very reason, to be denied. younger they are, the less, I think, are their unruly and disorderly appetites to be complied with; and the less reason they have of their own, the more are they to be under the absolute power and restraint of those in whose hands they are. From which, I confess, it will follow, that none but discreet people should be about them."

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'Be sure to establish the authority of a father as soon as the child is capable of submission, and can understand in whose power he is. If you would have him stand in awe of you, imprint it in his infancy, and as he approaches more to a man admit him nearer to your familiarity, so shall you have him your obedient subject (as is fit) whilst he is a child, and your affectionate friend when he is a man.' This passage advises a complete inversion of the ordinary mode, which is to fondle children when young, and to 'keep them in their proper place' by a more distant behaviour, and by the more rigorous exercise of authority, as they grow up. But is not the treatment which estranges the son from the father wrong in both cases? The difference of age puts only too great a gulf between them already. To make either the child or young man stand in awe of his father is not exactly the way to bridge this gulf over. This can only be done by the father's endeavouring to enter into the feelings of the son, and seeking his sympathy in return. As for establishing the parental authority, a consistent firmness will do this without the aid of the power derived from fear and awe.'

But, whilst advising that whatsoever rigour is necessary should be the more used the younger children are,' Locke is very strong against great severity. The children must be taught self-denial; but, on the other side, if the mind be curbed and humbled too much in children, if their spirits be debased and humbled much by too strict a hand over them, they lose all their vigour and industry, and are in a worse state than [in the other extreme.] For extravagant young fellows that have liveliness and spirit come sometimes

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to be set right, and so make able and great men, but dejected minds, timorous and tame, and low spirits are hardly ever to be raised, and very seldom attain to anything.' 'Slavish discipline makes slavish temper, and so leads to hypocrisy; and where it is most successful, it breaks the mind, and then you have a low-spirited, moped creature, who, however with his unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame, inactive children because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble, yet, at last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he will be all his life a useless thing to himself and others.' 'To avoid the danger that is on either hand, is the great art; and he that has found a way how to keep up a child's spirit easy, active, and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to reconcile these seeming contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education.'

No corporal punishment, Locke tells us, is useful where the shame of suffering for having done amiss does not work more than the pain; otherwise, we merely teach boys to act from the worst motives of all -regard to bodily pleasure, or pain. The tutor must be sparing in his correction, for it is his business to create a liking for learning, and 'children come to hate things which were at first acceptable to them, when they find themselves whipped and chid and teazed about them. . . Offensive circumstances ordinarily infect innocent things which they are joined with, and the very sight of a cup wherein anyone uses to take

nauseous physick turns his stomach so that nothing will relish well out of it, though the cup be never so clean and well-shaped, and of the richest materials.' From this, Locke would almost seem to agree with Comenius, that no punishment should be connected with learning. The notion may appear utopian, but if boys could once be interested in their work it would not be found so.*

In passing, I may observe that teachers of a kindly disposition are sometimes guilty of great cruelty, from neglecting the truth Locke dwells upon with such emphasis, viz. that the mind will not act during any depression of the animal spirits. A boy fails to say his task, and he is kept in till he does: or he cannot be made to understand some simple matter, and the teacher's patience gets exhausted, when he has explained the thing again and again, and then can get no answer, or only an utterly absurd answer to the easiest question about it. Perhaps the boy is not a stupid boy, so the master accuses him of sullen inattention. The truth is, that the boy is frightened or dejected, and his mind no longer works at the command of the will. As Locke says, 'It is impossible children should learn anything whilst their thoughts are possessed and disturbed with any passion, especially fear, which

* Since I wrote the above, a remark from a schoolboy of more than average industry (or perhaps I ought to say, of less than average laziness), has rather shaken me in this opinion: Somehow I can't get up my work for Mr. : we never get anything if we don't. Both boys and grown people are apt to shrink from exertion where there is no must in the case, even though the exertion be not in itself distasteful to them. I doubt, therefore, if a wise master would entirely give up compulsion, though he would never apply it to young children, or trust to it exclusively in the case of older pupils.

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makes the strongest impression on their yet tender and weak spirits. Keep the mind in an easy, calm temper, when you would have it receive your instructions, or any increase of knowledge. It is as impossible to draw fair and regular characters on a trembling mind, as on a shaking paper.' We all know, from our own experience, that when the mind is disturbed, or jaded, it no longer obeys the will, and yet in school-work we always consider the lads' mental power a constant quantity. Miss Davies well says: Probably, if the truth were known, it would be found that injustice and unkindness are comparatively seldom caused by harshness of disposition. They are the result of an incapacity for imagining ourselves to be somebody else' (Higher Education of Women,' p. 137). This I take to be especially true of the unkindness of schoolmasters.

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Rewards and punishments are largely employed in Locke's mode of education; but they are to be the rewards and punishments of the mind-esteem and disgrace. The sense of honour should be carefully cultivated. Whatever commendation the child deserved should be bestowed openly; the blame should be in private. Flogging is to be reserved for stubbornness and obstinate disobedience. Locke concludes his advice on discipline by saying, that if the right course be taken with children, there will not be so much need of the application of the common rewards and punishments as usage has established. Children should not be too much checked. The gamesome humour, which is wisely adapted by Nature to their age and temper, should rather be encouraged to keep

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